Land of Pictures
Sitemap Picture Commentary : Click on Pictures to see their full-sized version. See Also Land of Pictures 2 Of course there was a third option : That Schrodlinger couldn't get the cat to stay in the box... This is what Trolleys from the 40s looked like. Pacific Electric Trolley (Los Angeles) from LA Noire. 30's era trolley system equipment. They lasted until the very early 60s. Columbia allegedly built for a Worlds Fair would have transportation for fairgoers, with period styled vehicles taking them around to see the Showcase City In The Sky. Unfortunately, Infinite BS only needed it as a game mechanism, and even that was severely modified and curtailed to a shadow of what it should have been. Back in the early days when computers used tubes and early transistors were extremely expensive (like $50-$100 each), computer memory capacity was a significant problem. The Selectron was a type of memory that stored its bits using phosphor fluorescence as its storage method. This tube could hold 256 'bits' and a row of these tubes (along with a pile of vacuum tube electronics the size of a small car) gave the computer its Read And Write Memory (RAM), used to hold programs and working data. Within a few years, this was superceded by much cheaper/more compact Magnetic Core memory, which lasted into the 70s and the manufacture of IC memory. A Selectron memory tube with the capacity of 4096 bits, which wasn't produced successfully (this was the late 40s, early 50's). William's Tubes worked similarly (much larger and shaped more like a display CRT). The guts of one of Fink Mfg. Vending Machines in Columbia. Are all those strange openings the slots for Bullion and Jewelry that somehow were 'money' in Infinite BS? Somewhere there is a Bill Slot so customers have less a problem when some items costs as much as $4000 (Is it any wonder virtually noone in Columbia used Fink's Vigors when they cost more than someone's yearly income ?) Passenger section from the Zeppelin Hindenburg. Columbia might have been built minus the Quantum Bullshit (sorry Quantum Mechanics has nothing to do with levitation -- you might as well have said Pixie Dust). But Lighter-Than-Air technologies might be plausible, as long as the 'brick' is false decorative tinplate and much of the solid building mass is the equivalent of styrofoam. There would be a stadium-sized helium balloon above each City Block. Columbia would be orbitting the World pushed by an atmospheric Jet Stream - giant sails allowing 'tacking' to steer it a bit. Let them develop some Solar Power early to give them something to work with to power the city. Leave off the bad fantasy pseudo-science crap and concentrate on the circa 1900 social issues (real ones) for the dystopiac plot. Fairly complicated looking control display (looks like a Mercury Rocket Capsule), if you compare it to even a modern day railroad engine's controls. I can see some game manager telling the asset artist : "needs more lights and things"... Yes, Bioshocks Iconic image wasn't original. Artists' idea of what a 'trolley car' is. Too small, too narrow, no seats inside, track length virtually useless. A caricature which the word 'poor' doesnt even spell its patheticness. The Metro Trolleys would have been the backbone component of Rapture's Transit system, carrying the bulk of its passengers (versus the more expensive Bathysphere component). Very bizarre Trolley car. It may have been (justification) an older 'Freight' type car which had to be reactivated/used for passengers after Atlas's terrorists had wrecked more recent passenger type Trolleys. Even then, the design is just wrong. Photoshopped a bit more to show what the (game) Trolleys could have looked like (still the wrong shape/design). The oversized wheeled 'trucks' look like they were stolen from a 'Trainz' mod'ing freightcar model. More Cardpunch machine. I actually long ago had to use one of these. You type a letter wrong and you start over on a new blank card. They seem to be used in place of a computer 'terminal' in Minervas Den, when it really isnt one. You punch a bunch of cards(one line of code per card), then take your stack of cards (sometimes a very large stack) and put it into a card reader machine. That 'batch' submits your program, it runs, and your output is printed out on a large Line Printer machine (thats it -- NO interactive display). This one appears to have a label 'Ryan' which could indicate that Ryan owned a computer equipment company. Card Punches were used by many businesses to generate cards for accounting, billing, inventory control, as well as programming. Many of the early computers were little more than semi-programmable tabulating machines that were fed their data via punchcards. The utterly useless short RTA Trolley tracks were a caricature in BS1 (they (the developers) didn't want to put any real effort into it, I guess...) But at the Olympus Heights end of Apollo Square's 'branch' of tracks, it looks as if they had the idea of the track continuing on to someplace else (looks intentionally blocked up). Now the other branches dont have these, so are still in a state of 'useless and pathetically incomplete'. A real (as in useful) Trolley system would have continuous lines crossing the city, often crisscrossing it to offer a multitude of connections between all the groups/clusters of buildings. Trolleys (rather than the inefficient/expensive taxicab-like Bathyspheres) would be the primary transit method, carrying the majority of the city's travelers/commuters. Note that a Trolley Viaduct also can serve as a way to get from place to place by walking (or bicycling) if the Trolley is not working. "Who needs Quantum Bullshit when you have Clockwork goodness to drive you through the Aether ?" - Fink, commenting on his Clockwork Rocket Engine. The Tear opened up, and Fink gave the man 30 cases of Scotch as the other detailed how a thing called 'Warp Drive' worked. Home Com-pu-tor. It probably can be used to keep 'recipes' and to write letters. Unfortunately, the Civil War interfered with McClendon's Spread Sheet program project, which would have made the thing actually useful. A text adventure game called "The Colossal Anthill" (which satired the parasitic Surface World) was rumored to be in development. Cleaned up, but is really still the wrong design - an incredible lack of space inside for passengers. The Orange Trolley Car way above (from LA Noir) is more like what should have been used by the consolidated Rapture Transit Authority. Created by starting with the Austin Transit Map (from BS1), and incorporating the (partial) AE Map diagram (from BS2), and filling in a few details and added various building clusters and other features. The solid black lines are 'streets' which the Trolleys go through. Mechanism that might have been used as more realistic Diving Hard Suits needed for Rapture's depth (sorry, canvas diving apparatus wouldn't have worked until MUCH later when ADAM enhancement would have allowed routine work at pressures many times as much as divers in the old diving gear could handle), which would be used for the majority of Rapture's original construction. Hydraulic actuators eliminated complicated/difficult wrist and finger joints and the extra seals which are problematic at the pressures Rapture existed at. This Sinclair Solututions Bathysphere model, which could roll and raise itself from the water (via a ramp), would have been the real 'Automobile of Rapture', greatly simplifying the facilities required to maintain/operate these vehicles. The thing still weighed 15 tons (equaling the volume of water it displaced), but would have been far more practical for Rapture's growing suburbs. Its teardrop shape (the epitome of streamlining) allowed the models built to win several Bathysphere Racing Competitions just before Raptures Civil War started. Sinclair would have employed his 'think tank' of prison inmates for some of its development, as well as salvaged metals from his other business venture. A more flexible alternative to the fixed Bathysphere/Train/Trolley routes and lowered expenses would make Sinclair's simplified submersibles a success. More Emergency Access Map Diagram modified to make better sense. Corrected to reflect the BS2 partial RR map added to the Austin Bathysphere Map positions. This map reflected restricted routes used by city security and emergency personnel. Self Cleaning Toilet created by Fink that Suchong wanted to steal the design for... How many players would do a "good" ending now, if the 'Gatherers' looked like this ? Even moreso, if they all sounded/behaved like the zombies in World War Z... 1940s era "Super-Power" (steam technology) RR locomotive, which existed alongside military Jet planes and the V2 Rocket - yet for mundane things older proven technology is always leveraged. The old canvas suits (on right) didnt hold out the water pressure (were pumped up to the pressure of the depth they operated in) and thus subjected the diver to sideeffects like 'the bends' and nitrogen narcosis. The Hard Suit held out the pressure (it is at sea level pressure inside) but at cost of being much more complicated and clumsy/limited (the canvas suits weren't that great to begin with), but could operate at greater depths. Imagine how tiring working in a suit like this for any real length of time would be . Evolution of the Columbia Skyhook which would have fit the original track mechanism -- that with a chain drive running inside C-Rails. The large version - the teeth fit between the moving chain's links to pull the User along - fixed speed, non-reversible (you had to switch rails ??). Either way, dropping down to grab it didn't work mechanically (lucky because doing that would pull one or more of your joints out of their sockets). Sorry, no chainsaw action to spiff up the game with gratuitous violence - so it was discarded. Interesting use of Ring Joints/Seals to give appendage flexibility. Whatever depth Rapture was at, something of this sort had to be used, versus those canvas suits absurdly presented as used for building the City. Note- workers who did near-surface work (pre-fabrication assembly close to the surface, who need not ever go to Rapture) could use the old canvas suits to a depth of about 150 feet. It is even the right shape for a building built to resist the immense pressure down there in the dark deep. Curves are your friend, especially for windows. Art Deco style has lots of curves which we rarely saw in Rapture. The single pane 30 foot wide FLAT windows in Neptunes Bounty were ludicrous, not just because they had to hold upto the equivalent weight of a Saturn 5 rocket, pressing in its center, but also because at a real industrial site they wouldn't have/need anything so extravagently expensive -- when the rest of the place is obviously so low-rent. Smaller windows to look out in wonder through seemed to work just fine in the rest of the game. And More No huge/oversized wheels/trucks jacking the thing needlessly off the ground (and having fairings/skirting to help keep passengers out from under the wheels). Could still go with the Bathysphere-like brass decoration motif without looking so stupid/gangly. A little Game Design research goes a long way (and since these systems have had a renaissance in the last few decades, there are PLENTY of real examples for the artists to have seen). And Suddenly Sofia Lamb lurched out of a Tear, wild eyed and dressed in her insane asylum patient clothing, just in time for the Luteces' first Building Float Test's failure to land on her, precipiatating a choir troop of a midget minstrel singers (auditioning for a gig on one of the Columbia Show City entertainment venues) to sing "You Crush My Heart" . (perhaps inspiring L Frank Baum's scene in his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, circa 1900) Its hard to think that the Bathyspheres seen in Rapture could have inspired Prentis Mill to speak of a 'Bathysphere Craze' (said likely years earlier than the Civil War, allegedly precipitating the decline of his Atlantic Express). More personal submersible units might have resembled this one, which has more of the 50s 'fin' style and streamlining, less volume/weight, and hopefully less expensive facility requirements to make them more like our automobiles. Note- smaller compartment means it could weigh alot less, and with wheels underneath, it might have a chance to roll out of the water by itself (saving on expensive lift/crane equipment being needed at EVERY dock). Operated more like an airplane, it is NOT like just fixing a car. Instead of falling to the ground to crash and burn (as planes do), you would sink to your cold watery grave (and its considered lucky if you are crushed instantly instead of slowly asphyxiating in your new deep sea tomb). This is almost funny if it weren't so pathetic. Dont the developers KNOW how blackboards even got used -- as working tools? No clean perfect diagram with perfectly neat and spaced text filling the surface on any real one (in a reality universe). So cohesive/finished an idea layout would simply have been put directly on paper. SO here they tie in the Infinite BS 'Tears' to justify the existance of the Vita-Chamber - now being Suchong's creation, and ready to go into full production - when Suchong has only had HOW LONG(?) after just seeing Tears himself, and having also expressed his disdain for the 'Bullshit' as he called the Quantum Entanglement technology in BS2. (Well Fink apparently had this magic ability in Infinite BS too - just look at something and 'Presto' he's producing it as a consumer product). Deployed with ONLY Ryans code? Rather a poor writer understanding of Rapture events, even to have a reasonable flow of time -- the way they compressed all these story elements - old and new (having everything including the McClendon Auto-Kitchen Sink) into their absurd DLC plot. REMIND me to not buy any consumer product from these game dev people, if they think such items are produced with such delusional fantasyland simplicity. Too many things wrong to do it justice here. Cute idea, but Sorry, Bioshock wasn't supposed to be Fantasy (misshapen drills just don't work as grappling hooks, shape is bad for projecting thru water, and not even as a 'drill'). This seen through huge windows even more absurd than the ones in Neptunes Bounty. (You'd also think that spending an INFINITE sum of money for such a marvelous huge impossible window, that they could have easily managed to have those large pipes located elsewhere, so as to NOT spoil the intended 'impressive' view ???) "Carnegie" - the Steel industrialist's rival 'floating city'. With the US Government building Columbia, and not wanting to foot the bill, there is one place the money would have come from. Of course those who invested expected/assured to get their hands on the technology which made it possible. Yet More : Typical Public Safety Awareness. A 500 ton Train can't stop when you walk into its path... Something not shown in Bioshock - was that some of the AE trains traversed tunnels that were NOT in the Ocean (were air-filled). Various terrain seabed ridges were burrowed through, instead of going up-and-over or around. This is a Freight Train (the AE blueprint seen in game (BAS2) was a 'locomotive' unit like this). With all the comings-and-goings and to-and-fros between dimensions and the Timetravel BS, even Fink started to get worried after meeting himself for the third time. Typical fast food restaurant minion, after Fontaine took ADAM to the Surface World. Saturnine Prophesy which foresaw the stupid story/plotline of Infinite BS (its all gibberish). If you use the Cheats (fly and ghost) to get behind the door when the (Fort Frolic) 'ghost' story' of Jasmine Jolene's murder is playing, you can see a pair of Sander Cohens doing a pole dance (used to create the weird shadows you see around the closed door). It may hint that Cohen had more than a little to do with Jolene's death. In Rapture, and especially Infinite, this wouldn't be strange at all. You have to face it, even Rapture with 20K-40K people was small potatoes. Picture is of a 1920s FIAT manufacturing plant which could have employed every working person in Rapture. Rapture simply couldn't have mass-produced more than a handfull of items, and the rest would be small shop production (significantly more expensive). An awful lot would have had to be made and brought from the Surface, and those would eventually have to be repaired (not replaced AND even then many things really couldn't be repaired - a limited skill base against the spectrum of technology in the modern world). After a few decades, Rapture would be a city of 'used' goods. Did Tonics like 'Perfect Pitch' and "Diva" or "Songbird" ever exist in Rapture? Users might have left other artists 'in the dust', like Grace Holloway left playing in a slum. Did we really hear many of Sander Cohen's records enough to know that he didn't sing like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra (or Ethel Merman)??? Would most accomplished artists even bother to come to Rapture, with its limited audiences (many probably picking showbiz fame versus escaping Nuclear Doomsday) ?? With Rapture's Wonder Tonics though, a Surface 'hack' performer might get a substantial boost to their mediocre ability. More More : This is a 'Disk Drive' in 1956. Five whole MegaBytes !!! The technologists in Rapture probably still had outside-world channels to get information to continue to know about Surface world technical developments. With the Bio-Electronics made possible by ADAM, they might have found different solutions. A Seamount. Rapture is supposed to have been built on one. Apparently there are several thousand 1 to 2 kilometers high in the World's Oceans. Such a height would be needed to raise the seabed sufficiently close to the surface upon the typical open/deep ocean depths(3000+ feet in area Rapture is located). So did Elizabeth actually "save" Annabelle DeWitt ??? So Fink had to go get his own SeaSlugs ??? Well they're at a significant depth, so he would need his own Bathysphere like thingees - wouldnt he?? (cost overhead alone for just this - no wonder his 'Vigors' cost a normal persons yearly salary.) Device detects Bad Pseudo Science Crutches used for game settings/plots. Something we all could have used for Infinite BS (and might have saved us from that 'Quantum Entanglement tripe in the earlier games). If Fink had one of these it would have overloaded and exploded in his face, taking out Columbia with it (problem solved). Its a recreation of an Audion Tube (vacuum tube 'valve') which was fundamental in bringing the age of electronics. A bit fancier than the real ones way back when. Looks more like it was a Flea Circus with its own Ferris Wheel (another 1893 innovation at the real Columbian Exposition). Amazing imagination some of these Steampunk artists/crafters have. Looks like something that would have fit into one of Columbia's 'arcades'. Steam, hmmm... Well early pinball machines were actually gambling devices - this one, if you lost, might spray a stream of scalding high pressure steam in your face - nearby would be the Fink MFG. Burn Ointment stand (only 100 Silver Eagles) ??? And Even More The cute little arms remind me of T-Rex. And is that a TV screen on its front ??? 'Looked Good' is such a pathetic excuse. So this thing is supposed to hold packages in front of itself? (no room under for anything of any size.) In which case a poor design overbalancing the point the thing is hanging from the 'line'. If these new lines/tubes/tunnels/whatever go as far as High Street and are big enough for people to travel through, then how far else did they go? If not to your home then you have to transship them at whatever point the system ends. (The Jet Postal packages couldn't be much bigger than a breadbox, so are little trouble to manhandle from the Postal Kiosks located all over the City). The Excuse is they wanted to reuse the SkyLine game mechanic for the little crazy rollercoaster action. Funnier would have been Booker/Elizabeth packing themselves into a little cylindrical capsule (a REAL pneumo system) and shooting off to some other area (potentially including a chase scene through the tunnel network). It did not take long for The United States to vastly improve the technology used for Columbia and then put it to use. In her first mission, the USS Eagle tracked down Columbia and forced it to surrender. But only until after Comstock was dead and half of Columbia was a shattered wreck laying on the ground. The flying city was hardly 'heavily armed' and certainly not armored, making it an easy target for the USS Eagles 12 inch main guns. The SkyLines supposely were an important transport system within Columbia, connecting the city with a web of tracks. The early trailers had this extensive system play a more significant role in the game. It was subsequently diminished to be little more than a joke, with the player traversing a rollercoaster loop within the level (it really doesn't go anywhere) and follow the usual restricted/blocked-in path maze on the ground. Apparently, the larger Skyline system just didn't work out for the real game, a great disappointment (amongst other things) to many players. The final system makes no real sense anymore, except as a contrived platform for Booker to shoot from and bounce around within the level. With a proper SkyLine system (not that rediculous final version), The Founders could have kept their City safe® from the murderous anarchists. If you are going to have a pretend Police State, then at least do it right. With a few of these trundling around, the Vox Populi wouldn't be sticking their heads up much, allowing the network of informants to dismantle/destroy them long before they had any chance to disrupt the serenity of the City. This armored and heavily armed Skyline train looks like it could 'take out' the Hand of the Prophet by itself and certainly any mob of Vox. Booker doped up on the Luteces "Lighthouse Coffee", is hoisted into Columbia (previously known as the New Eden Amusement Park and Freakshow, located adjacent to the long abandoned Columbian Exposition fairgrounds) raised up to the incredible 22 foot altitude (its on stilts). Booker will soon meet with "Columbians" drugged out and deluded inhabitants, and have some very strange adventures indeed. Atlantic Express advertisement sign, cleaned up to look like back in the old Pre-Civil War days. Not really sure why there would still be so many of these still around (in BS1), if the AE system had been shutdown many years before. Good advertisement space is reused very quickly in the real world. Nice shiney new Genetic Key used to access various secure control systems. Their being 'genetic' might have been more figurative than literal - more that their security coding wasn't breakable. One advantage of a 'Nostalgia' game is that the Assets are much easier to create when it doesn't require much imagination to come up with the styles to remake into plausible things. Real artists did most of the inspiration and work long ago. Proposed Heavy Hitter - Ferris Wheel of Death (to commemorate George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.'s Invention, built at the 1893 Exposition). It attacks by turning into a huge fiery pinwheel and flying at the player, with massive concussive and fire damage. Was abandoned after Ken Levine allegedly said "Thats just plain impossible and stupid." (or not) McClendon's idea (never finalized) after the failure of the Robotic Little Sisters to bond with the Big Daddies. Solution was to make the Little Sisters less vulnurable to Splicers. Not shown is the armament the GLS would carry to disuade Splicers (Lollipop Chainsaw? Teddy Bombs? Simply strangle/crush them with its hydraulic hands? Shriek at them at 200dB while calling them poopyheads? Not quite as exciting if Booker had to get around on the Skylines like this. Maybe have lots fun upgrades to mount weapons on it ? But then the game makers would have to revamp the graphics and game mechanics in a major way to support 'vehicles'. Ever try to peddle a bike uphill? - SO the Skyline tracks might have to be less rollercoaster-like as well. Cozy little Hideout in Fontaine Futuristics. Possibly NOT a Splicer's - someone making due hiding from Sofia Lamb? Dead Cats are magnitudes easier to do than Live Cats (as much work as doing Elizabeth actually), though how hard could it have been to have a few different fur color textures? (Note- lit candles indicate quite recently occupied. The person probably vacated quickly - evidently how they had managed to survive so long.) This looks really familiar, doesnt it ? Note- ALL pneumo systems used capsules/cannisters to carry the moved mail/objects, unlike Bioshock 2's which incorrectly showed the items (cans of food and bottles) themselves whizzing along through the pipes (just so you could play with your new Telekinesis Plasmid). Its simply doesnt/cannot work that way. See Pneumo_System A central mail station of a real pneumo mail system (the first pneumo systems were operational in the 1850s). Many such systems had tubes only about 3 inches across (for letter-sized transport, perhaps rolled magazines). The problem with larger sizes was weight, and whichever size was chosen there still would be countless packages that would still not fit (and could be subject to damage if not only paper). The systems were not operated by the public, but by employees. Some systems had people who would manually (by hand) route incoming capsules/cannisters into an array of outbound tubes at their workstation. http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm For more picture just google images "pneumatic mail" (apparently where the game company cloned theirs from). Land of Pictures 2 . . . . ---- ----